


Veshkriset

by azul_ora



Category: Wayfarers Series - Becky Chambers
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-12 23:37:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7953583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azul_ora/pseuds/azul_ora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are a lot of things Sissix doesn't understand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Veshkriset

Sissix knows that all the members of the _Wayfarer_ are other species and to expect them to act the same as Aandrisks would be stupid, but sometimes it’s so difficult to deal with them.

* * *

Ashby is kind, and Ashby is helpful, and Ashby is in a committed relationship and refuses to touch her the way she wants.

Ashby likes playing Aandrisk games with her though, so that’s a plus. His passion for puzzles is just as great as hers, and his talent nearly as much so. Anyone who says that Humans are stupid has clearly never played chess against them – the first time he introduced it to her, Sissix lost so spectacularly she almost never played again. And wasn’t it just ironic that one of Humanity’s oldest, most treasured games is about warfare? Even for the pacifist Exodan fleet, chess is still a respected, treasured game.

Ashby is good at conversation, and his Reskitkish, while not amazing, is passable. Enough for the two of them to have back-and-forth-conversations between Reskitkish and Klip, at any rate. She teaches him new words and he mangles the pronunciation and she laughs at the ridiculous things he’s accidentally saying (the best ‘accidental thing Ashby said’ so far is when he was attempting to say that he was an only child and he said instead that Sissix was his only fuck).

* * *

Kizzy is crazy, and Kizzy talks weirdly, and Kizzy is super tactile for a Human but by Aandrisk standards is still quite reserved.

Sissix can tell that Kizzy makes an effort to be more Aandrisk-like. She hugs Sissix at every available opportunity and strokes her feathers every mealtime and kisses her once or twice a day and sits in her lap if ever they’re sitting down for five minutes. Pretty much the only thing Kizzy won’t do is fuck her, and that’s more out of a lack of interest in sex on Kizzy’s part than anything else. Sissix is tactile, and Sissix enjoys touching, but she’s not going to ask Kizzy to do something that makes her uncomfortable. Demisexuality is practically unheard of among Aandrisks, but she understands that Humans have their things and for some of them, sex without love just doesn’t compute.

(Kizzy prefers to just smoke smash.)

Kizzy’s somewhat difficult to hold a conversation with, though, because her words are complicated and her Klip is so colloquial that sometimes it’s difficult for Sissix to understand. She talks really fast, too, and switches topics so quickly (not to mention talking about the ship’s systems in complicated jargon Sissix’s never heard before in her _life_ ) that it’s tricky to follow the flow of the conversation.

Sissix tries to imagine once how it must be to try and follow the flow of Kizzy’s thoughts. The idea makes her head hurt, and she stops.

* * *

Jenks is noble, and Jenks is patient, and Jenks is more tactile than Ashby and less so than Kizzy.

Jenks doesn’t try to emulate Aandrisk behaviour like Kizzy does, but neither does he restrict himself to committed monogamy like Ashby. As Sissix understands it, Lovey and Jenks have come to an agreement that Jenks is to behave physically however he likes towards other sapients, and even have sex with other sapients if he wants (though Sissix seriously doubts he ever would), so long as he doesn’t act romantically towards them. Sort of like what Humans would call an ‘open relationship’: Jenks can fuck and touch whoever he wants, but he’s only allowed to _love_ Lovey.

Which is fitting, given her name.

(Sissix pretends she doesn’t know about the body kit, and Jenks’s plan to get Lovey into it – she ran across it while she was looking for something she knew she’d left in the oldest storage room somewhere, but she thinks that if there’s ever an AI who deserves a body kit, it’s Lovey.)

So Jenks hugs her a lot, and strokes her feathers, and cuddles up with her. Jenks loves hugs.

Jenks can’t speak Reskitkish – most Humans struggle with it, and his lungs are smaller than most Humans’, so he just can’t get enough air to speak it, but he understands a few of the words that Sissix uses a lot.

Jenks was the one who introduced Sissix to Cards Against Sapients, which she loves an unhealthy amount. Whenever they play in a group as the crew, she pretty much always wins (Sissix is just a lot more crass than the rest of the crew).

Sissix makes sure never to mention Jenks’s height. Ever. She knows what it’s like to be judged for something beyond your control.

* * *

Corbin is rude, and Corbin is an asshole, and Corbin’s life depends on her so Sissix can’t even get away from him.

The only way Corbin would ever touch Sissix is to punch her in the face, and the feeling is pretty much mutual. Corbin doesn’t speak a word of Reskitkish and says it sounds like a broken air pipe to him.

(He has stopped calling her a lizard though. She guesses that finding out you’re a clone, and that most people would think you’re second class for that, was enough to stamp out his speciest tendencies.)

Corbin is undoubtedly the most annoying member of her feather family, but in that way he just makes it a little more perfectly imperfect – every family has one of those people in it that you love to hate and icily tolerate.

* * *

Dr Chef is kind, and Dr Chef is sensitive, and Dr Chef is so different Sissix wouldn’t even know how to start having sex with him.

Dr Chef’s grasp of Klip is poorer than her own, so with his shaky vocal cords he speaks quite slowly, which means that Sissix can always understand him fine. She makes an effort to speak more slowly as well, though the speed doesn’t match the enthusiasm she normally speaks with in Reskitkish. Altogether, though, he’s easier to talk to than any of the others, seeing as they both have the outsider’s view of Klip.

Dr Chef is also always there to offer a cup of tea and some advice, and while he’s not the most intimate, Grum don’t view personal space in quite the same way, she he doesn’t mind Sissix curling up with him, skin-on-skin on a sofa, so long as she’s careful with her claws. They share a passion for the living and the growing – Dr Chef because of his love for food, and Sissix for how exotic it seems to her, having grown up on a primarily desert planet.

(Dr Chef helps her when she’s moulting as well, which is always a plus.)

* * *

Ohan is weird, and Ohan is timid, and Ohan himself doesn’t even know who he is so Sissix doesn’t stand a chance in Hell.

(Everything Sissix had learnt about Ohan when he was infected with the Whisperer has gone out of the windows he loved to stare out of so much, so she’s basically had to start again with his personality. What she’s got so far is that Ohan loves real food, hates windows, refuses to swear, is curious about smash, finds the sublayer quite pleasant and likes to get up early.)

* * *

Rosemary is sweet, and Rosemary is attractive, and Rosemary is all at once very Human and not Human at all.

As Sissix understands it, Humans place a lot of emphasis on biological family, and even though some Humans do make ‘families’ out of their friends, in much the same way as Aandrisk feather families, most still have _some_ connection to their biological family (probably due to usually being at least partially raised by them). Rosemary doesn’t. Just like Sissix, Rosemary considers the _Wayfarer_ her first, best family.

Rosemary does her best to be culturally sensitive, and for the most part succeeds – her attitudes towards clothing, for example, becomes more and more relaxed the longer she lives on the _Wayfarer_ , until some days she wanders around pretty much totally naked. She touches people a lot – a head on a shoulder, a hand on a leg, a long hug or a cuddle together in a chair. She has sex with Sissix, and doesn’t get upset when Sissix has sex with other people – indeed, she does it as well, though not quite in the same way. For all her acceptance and natural emulation of Aandrisk culture, Rosemary still doesn’t like tets, or things like them: even in an open relationship, she prefers all her encounters to be one-on-one. Pretty much the only old Human habit of Rosemary’s that she retains completely and totally is knocking on doors before she goes in.

Sissix often finds herself comparing Rosemary to the long-extinct chameleon, the reptile that changed how it looked to match its surroundings. Except there’s one big difference. The chameleon made a conscious effort to change its colours in order to blend in. Rosemary does it without thinking. She adopts the thoughts and mannerisms of the people around her without even thinking: Kizzy’s lack of tact, Jenks’s respect for AIs, Ashby’s devotion to his ship and crew, Corbin’s swearwords (of which there are an extensive range), Dr Chef’s kind consolations, Ohan’s passion for the new, and Sissix’s…

There are too many ways Rosemary is like Sissix to mention.

Sissix doesn’t think Rosemary has even realised how much she’s changed from that shy, cautious, paranoid girl with the strong Martian accent that stepped off a deepod and into a decontamination flash on her first day.

(Even her speech has changed – she’s picked up a tad of Dr Chef’s melody and a spice of Ashby’s Exodan and a bit of Corbin’s gruffness and a few of Kizzy’s semi-made-up words and a touch of Ohan’s slowness and a taste of Jenks’s consideration.)

But Sissix likes Rosemary for one thing which never seems to change – one of the primary traits which all Humans, Aandrisks, Harmagians, Aeluons and every other species Sissix’s ever come across seems to share.

Rosemary wants to be accepted. She wants a home and a family and a safe space.

For Sissix, and Rosemary, and Ashby and Corbin and Kizzy and Jenks and Dr Chef and Ohan, that’s the _Wayfarer_.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't own 'em (unfortunately). As it is, this is set after the events of Long Way, in a universe where Lovey survives (bc I love her too much to kill her).


End file.
